3. Each player chooses a hero and places it on the “Start”
chamber. (It doesn’t matter which hero you choose, as they
are all the same in the basic game.)
The old dragon Drakon has captured a brave band of adventurers who have sneaked into her lair to steal her gold. But rather
than eat them immediately, Drakon has decided to make it a
game: Greed shall set one of the adventurers free. She sends the
frightened adventurers into her magical, mad vaulted chambers,
and the first one to collect ten gold from Drakon’s maze gets to
go free. The rest get to be lunch.
This third edition of the Drakon board game features larger
chamber tiles, completely new graphics, and plastic hero and
Drakon figures. The mix of chamber tiles in this edition
(selected from those in second edition and the second edition expansion) is designed to offer the most fun and interesting Drakon yet.
Object of the Game
4. Place all the coins in a pile to the side of the playing area
facedown so that their numbers are not showing. This pile is
the Dragon’s Hoard.
A Game Turn
Randomly choose which player will take the first turn.
When that player’s turn is over, the player to his or her left
gets to take a turn. In this way, play rotates clockwise.
On your turn, you must take one of the following actions:
Place: Place a chamber from your hand adjacent to
another chamber already in play, then draw the top
chamber from the draw pile and add it to your hand.
OR
Move: Move your hero onto an adjacent chamber,
then follow the instructions for that chamber, if any.
In Drakon, you and your opponents each control one of the
heroes trapped in Drakon’s lair. The first player to collect
enough coins for a total value of at least 10 gold immediately
wins the game. Players should keep their gold coins facedown in front of them, so that players are never sure exactly
how close their opponents are to victory.
Placing a Chamber
Components
If there are no chambers left in the draw pile, play continues
as normal, except you do not draw another chamber after
you place one from your hand.
Drakon contains the following components:
• This Rulebook
• 1 Drakon Figure: This figure represents Drakon herself.
• 6 Hero Figures: These figures represent the hero heroes.
• 6 Hero Ability Counters: These counters are used in
the “Heroes!” variant game.
• 72 Chambers (square tiles): These components fit together
to form a map of the dragon’s lair. Many chambers have special actions that are triggered whenever heroes move onto
them. These actions are described later in these rules.
• 6 Player Reference Sheets: These provide an easy way to
look up chamber effects.
• 28 Coins: These are the coins the players are trying to collect in order to win the game. Each coin is worth between
one and three gold.
Game Setup
1. Place the “Start” chamber (the double-sided chamber with
the red dragon head) in the center of the table.
2. Shuffle the remaining chambers, deal four facedown to
each player, and put the rest to the side facedown in a stack.
This stack is the draw pile.
When placing a chamber, you must place it adjacent to a
chamber already in play, but you may not place it so that the
arrows of the two chambers face each other. See the “Placing
a Chamber” diagram for examples of legal and illegal chamber placement.
If you have no chambers in your hand, you may not place a
chamber or draw a chamber from the draw pile. On your turn,
you may only move your hero. If you cannot move your hero,
you may not take your turn and you are skipped.
If none of the players have chambers or can move their heroes,
the game is over, and the player with the most gold wins.
Moving Your Hero
You may only move a hero in the direction of an arrow on
the hero’s current chamber. For example, if your hero is on a
chamber with arrows pointing up and down, you may only
move your hero up or down (assuming there are adjacent
chambers in those directions). If there is no arrow in a direction, or there is no adjacent chamber in that direction, you
may not move your hero there. (There are two chamber tiles,
Master Key and Teleport, that allow you to violate this rule.)
When you move your hero onto a chamber, the special
action (indicated by the symbol on the chamber) is enacted.
Actions are not performed again unless your hero legally
reenters the chamber during a later turn.
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The Drakon Figure
The Drakon figure is set aside at the beginning of the game.
The very first time a player places a “Drakon Moves” chamber, that player must also place the Drakon figure on any
chamber on which no heroes are standing.
For the rest of the game, if the Drakon figure ends a turn on
the same chamber as a player’s hero, that hero must be
moved to the “Start” chamber, and that player discards one
coin randomly. (The player shuffles his coins facedown and
another player picks a coin for him to discard.) If the
Drakon figure is on a chamber with more than one hero, all
heroes are affected. If the hero is already on the “Start”
chamber, then that player just loses one coin.
Note that there is no effect if your hero is moved through a
chamber with the Drakon figure (under the influence of a
“Strong Wind,” for example), or if the Drakon figure moves
through a chamber on which your hero is standing.
If your hero is moved onto a chamber with the Drakon figure, you must immediately (before any chamber actions take
place) move your hero to the “Start” chamber and discard
one of your coins randomly.
Note: The Drakon figure is NOT considered a hero, and
therefore does not trigger chamber effects.
Optional Rules and Variants
Optional Rule: Heroes!
In the basic game, it doesn’t matter which hero you control, but with this game variant, players choose their
heroes randomly, and your hero gives you a special action
you can use once per game. You may take your special
action on your turn, immediately before or immediately
after taking your normal action (placing a chamber or
moving your hero).
Use the hero ability counters to keep track of who has used
their special ability. When you use your hero’s ability, return
the hero ability counter to the box.
Below is a list of heroes and their special abilities:
Amazon: You may use the Amazon’s ability to move the
Amazon one additional chamber along a legal path. Follow
the instructions on both chambers.
Barbarian: When the Barbarian is on the same chamber as an
opponent’s hero, you may use his ability to move the opponent’s hero one legal move. The other player must follow the
instructions for the chamber into which he was moved. Then
the Barbarian takes a random chamber from the opponent he
moved and adds the chamber to his own hand.
Dwarf: The Dwarf ’s ability allows you to immediately discard any number of chambers from your hand, then draw an
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equal number of new chambers from the draw pile. If you
have fewer than four chambers, you may continue to draw
new chambers until you have four chambers in your hand.
Knight: If an opponent tries to take a coin from you, or you
are about to lose a coin because of a chamber action, you
may (before you randomly choose which coin is lost) use the
Knight’s ability to prevent the coin from being lost. (This is
the only special action which is not necessarily taken during
your turn. Like all special actions, however, it can only be
taken once per game.)
Thief: The Thief ’s ability allows you to take a random coin
from one opponent whose hero is in the same chamber as
the Thief (but only if that player has at least one coin). Or,
instead of stealing from an opponent, the Thief may swap
one coin of his choosing from his hand with a random coin
from the Dragon's Hoard.
Wizard: The Wizard’s ability allows you to move out of a
chamber through any of the four doorways on a chamber,
even moving against the arrows of adjacent chambers. This
does not give the Wizard an extra move, but simply allows
him to break the “legal movement” rule once.
Variant: Escape from Drakon’s Lair!
In order to win, a hero must be the first to collect at least
eight gold, then move onto an “Escape” or “Teleport” chamber in order to escape Drakon’s wrath. If you have eight or
more gold when you move your hero onto either one of
these chambers, you win the game.
Variant: Team Play (4 or 6 players)
With this variant, two players are on the same team trying to
collect a total of 20 gold together. With four players, you
have two teams of two players per team. With six players,
you have three teams of two players per team.
In a four-player game, each player sits across from his or her
teammate. Thus the order of play is: Player 1 (Team A), Player
2 (Team B), Player 3 (Team A), Player 4 (Team B).
In a six-player game, each player sits three seats to the left of
his or her teammate, so that the order of play is: Player 1
(Team A), Player 2 (Team B), Player 3 (Team C), Player 4
(Team A), Player 5 (Team B), Player 6 (Team C).
All of the standard rules apply, with the exception that your
gold and your teammate’s gold is shared in a common pool.
Both of you may secretly look at your coins to determine
your total gold value. If a coin is discarded or stolen from
your teammate, the coin is taken from your common pool.
Variant Game: Fixed Gold
Instead of collecting a total of 10 gold, the first player to collect five coins immediately wins the game (regardless of the
coins’ gold value).
Chamber Descriptions
Start: This is the chamber where players’
heroes start the game. The “Start” chamber
may not be destroyed with the “Destroy a
Chamber” chamber or removed from play
with the “Magical Shift” chamber. It may,
however, be rotated with the “Rotate a
Chamber” chamber.
Blank Chambers: These chambers just
have arrows on them indicating which way
your hero can leave. There are chambers with
one, two, or three arrows designating exits.
The following chambers trigger special actions and effects.
Destroy a Chamber: This action occurs as soon
as your hero enters the chamber. Choose one
chamber in play on which no heroes or the
Drakon figure is standing and discard it, facedown, to the bottom of the draw pile. Destroying a chamber
can disconnect the board into two or more non-connected
sections.
Drakon Moves: This action occurs as soon as
your hero enters the chamber. Move the Drakon
figure up to three chambers, ignoring all chamber
actions and arrows. See the description of the
Drakon figure for details on what happens when the Drakon
figure moves onto a chamber with a hero on it. The very
first time this chamber is played, place the Drakon figure on
any chamber on which no heroes are standing.
Escape: When you place this chamber, you may
immediately place your hero onto it. The Escape
chamber can be used to avoid the effects of the
Strong Wind and Magic Harp chambers.
Find a Coin: This action occurs as soon as your
hero enters the chamber. Take a random coin from
the Dragon’s Hoard.
Floating Room: This action occurs as soon as
your hero enters the chamber. You may move this
chamber to any empty space adjacent to another
chamber already in play. You must place the chamber so that its arrows line up legally (no arrows are pointing
at each other). Moving this chamber can disconnect the
board into two or more non-connected sections.
Lose a Gold: This action occurs as soon as your
hero enters the chamber. Discard one of your
coins randomly (if you have any) into the
Dragon’s Hoard.
Magic Harp: If a chamber adjacent to the Magic
Harp chamber has an arrow pointing to the
Magic Harp chamber, then when heroes in the
adjacent chamber are moved, they must be moved
onto the Magic Harp chamber. The Wizard’s ability may
not be used to avoid this. If a hero is between two “Magic
Harp” chambers, the hero may be moved onto either one
of them.
Magical Shift: This action occurs as soon as your
hero enters the chamber. You may choose one chamber in play, on which no heroes or the Drakon figure
are standing, and replace it with one from your hand.
The chamber you’ve taken goes into your own hand and may
be played later during the game. The new chamber need not
have the same arrow orientation as the removed chamber,
though it must have a legal orientation (that is, its arrows cannot point at the arrows of any adjacent chambers).
Map Chamber: This action occurs as soon as
your hero enters the chamber. Take a random
chamber from an opponent’s hand and place it in
your own hand. Now you have one additional
chamber for the rest of the game, and your opponent has
one less chamber. If all of a player’s chambers are removed in
this fashion, that player may not place chambers during his
or her turn, but must move his or her hero instead.
Master Key: The next time that your hero is
moved, your hero may leave through any of the four
doors, even moving against the arrows of adjacent
chambers. This only works for this one chamber –
the Master Key isn’t something you carry with you.
Mind Control: This action occurs as soon as your
hero enters the chamber. Move an opponent’s hero
one legal move, following tile effects normally (for
example, if the hero is on a “Teleport” chamber,
you can move the hero to any other chamber in play). If
there is no legal path, you cannot move that hero. After you
move the hero, the opponent must follow the instructions of
the chamber on which his or her hero is now standing.
Rotate a Chamber: This action occurs as soon
as your hero enters the chamber. Rotate any one
chamber in any direction (90 or 180 degrees), so
long as it lines up legally when you’re done (no
arrows are pointing at each other). You may rotate a chamber
on which a hero or the Drakon figure is standing.
Steal a Coin (clockwise): This action occurs as
soon as your hero enters the chamber. Take a random
coin from the player seated clockwise from you
(the player on your left). You receive nothing if
that player has no coins.
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Steal a Coin (counterclockwise): This action
occurs as soon as your hero enters the chamber. Take a
random coin from the player seated counterclockwise from you (the player on your right). You
receive nothing if that player has no coins.
Placing a Chamber
Strong Wind: On the next turn that your hero is
moved, your hero must move two chambers all at
once. These two chambers must be along legal
paths, and you ignore the action on the chamber
your hero passes through. If your hero moves through a
“Teleport” or “Master Key” chamber, which have no arrows,
treat them as though they had arrows pointing in all legal
directions (that is, pointing at adjacent chambers where there
is no arrow pointing back). If your hero moves through a
chamber that is adjacent to the Magic Harp and has an arrow
pointing to it, your hero must move to the Magic Harp
chamber. You may not move your hero from this chamber if
there are not at least two chambers through which your hero
can legally move. You may use Hero abilities at the beginning
or end of this movement, but you may not use Hero abilities
in the chamber that your hero passes through. The Wizard
may only use his ability to move out of the Strong Wind
chamber if he can make a second, legal move without using
his ability.
Teleport: On the next turn that your hero is
moved, your hero may move to any chamber in
play.
Credits
Game Design: Tom Jolly
Game Development: John Goodenough and Corey Konieczka
Editing: James D. Torr
Cover Art: Dave Kendall
Miniature Design: Andez Gaston
Graphic Design: Andrew Navaro and Brian Schomburg
Chamber Design: Andrew Navaro
Icon Design: Brian Schomburg
Art Direction: John Goodenough
Production Manager: Darrell Hardy
Executive Developer: Greg Benage
Publisher: Christian T. Petersen
Playtesters: Rick Cunningham, Rob Cunningham, Dave
Johnson, Ray Lee, Dan Andoetoe, Mike Murphy, Pat Stapleton
Special Thanks To: Brandon Freels and Tom Brand
The chamber placements in the first two examples
are legal, because no arrows are facing each other.
The third placement example is not legal, because
two arrows are pointing at each other.
Moving Your Hero
Published by FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES ©2006 Fantasy
Flight Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. No parts of this product may be reproduced without specific permission from the
publisher.
For additional material, support, and information, please visit:
WWW.FANTASYFLIGHTGAMES.COM
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In the example above, the hero may only move to
the left, since there are no arrows pointing in the
other directions.